Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Dan Wallace at Parchment and Pen has an interesting post (link) that explains textual variants as well as a common mistake made by some "Evangelicals" who try to explain away the textual data, without really understanding it. I'm posting this link both because it is an interesting article, and also in attempt to falsify his quite reasonable prediction: "I suspect that more anti-Christian websites will link to this blog than Christian websites. That’s because these numbers feed their agenda."

2 comments:

I was asked and I dutifully purchased and read a book that really opened up the idea of errant codex manuscripts and basically concluded that the only Bible to read was the King James Version. You may have a copy yourself? It is titled: "New Age Bible Versions, an exhaustive documentation exposing the message, men and manuscipts moving mankind to the antichrist's one world religion!" by G.A. Riplinger.

On another note, do you have any knowledge on the "earliest" manuscripts that would exclude the verse in John, 6:4?

Joh 6:4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

A study I did recently argued for a 70 weeks literal ministry of Jesus from the time He began His public ministry and for a literal count of three days and three nights in the earth once He was entombed. The implication is the RCC manipulated the Latin versions to incorporate their version of the ministry and events of the Life of Jesus. The study is by Michael Rood and called "the Jonah Code and the seventy weeks ministry of Jesus".

This study lays out a timeline that seems to make sense to me if you do not include that one verse and you then make calculations based on anniversary dates beginning with God's word here:

Exo 12:1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, Exo 12:2 "This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Exo 12:3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household.

This study goes on to explain why there are, in some years, 13 months to the Hebrew calendar and in most, or, the majority of years there is only 12 months, since the counting of months each year by the Levitcal Priests, that began at that date at Ex. 12.

Also this study explains the meaning of the phrase "no man knows the day or the hour". The meaning according to the study has to do with the "sighting" of the new moon. At the beginning of the year, Ex. 12, the new moon was sighted by "two" witnesses and when both saw the sliver of the new moon at the beginning of the month they would record that and report it to the High Priest who then began to count from that sighting all the dates of celebration as a statute of God for them to follow throughout their generations; the Passover, the various feasts required during the year for them to experience before God. By this counting the barley was checked for "harvest maturity" because they could not harvest the barley until it was ripe. And if it wasn't ripe enough to harvest, they then counted a thirteenth month and then began the harvest.

Anyway, the point of the study was one must be careful not to make concrete assertions of times and seasons based on the Gregorian calendar or any other measure of count other than the Biblical counting based on Ex. 12 as we see God so directed the children of Israel through Moses:

Exo 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, Exo 12:6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Exo 12:14 "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Exo 12:15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. Exo 12:16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. Exo 12:17 And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. Exo 12:18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. Exo 12:19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. Exo 12:20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread."

Yes, it is an interesting book. Unfotunately, Ms. Riplinger's book seems to make a few critical errors. Dr. White has written a book called "The King James Version Controversy" which identifies some of those errors, providing some balance to the presentation put on in "New Age Bible Versions." That's not, of course, to suggest that everything that Riplinger says is wrong.

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